Save the Pearls Part One: Revealing Eden--Victoria Foyt

Eden is a lowly Pearl--a fair skinned girl living in a post-apocalyptic time with a deadly sun. Sun poisoning has wiped out most white people and the ones that have survived have become an inferior race to the Coals--black people who can withstand the dangerous sun. What the sun has started, people have continued; trying to breed the inferior light skins out of existence. Pearls are not entirely slaves of Coals in this reverse-racism world, but they are not seen as equals. In order to survive not only the sun but also fellow man, many Pearls color their faces and bodies and attempt to blend in with society. Eden chooses this path and hopes that a powerful Coal with a high mating status will choose her as his mate and save her life (Pearls are banished to the outside if they do not mate by age 18). Everything works "fine" until she botches up her father's secret experiment and they are both flown to a tropical jungle for their own safety. There she learns what life is outside the caves and what true beauty really means.

While there's nothing wrong with this novel, it felt like the author was trying too hard to convey her message that racism is bad. The story didn't get interesting until Eden wound up in the jungle with the results of her father's experiment, a beast-man who had been her boss and now was more animal than man. Then the story became more of a take on Beauty and the Beast.